Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/90

72 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. Areopagite shows the more organic union of Chris- tianity and Neo-platonism. I. Ethics Generally speaking, excellence and right in every school of pagan ethics was a matter of the rational and strenuous endeavor of the enlightened man. When he acted wrongly, he had his passion or igno- rance to blame ; when he acted aright, he might con- gratulate himself. A pagan is neither tempted of the devil, nor very definitely helped by God. Eight con- duct, that is, conduct most conducive to the actor's welfare, is whatever human experience and reason have approved. Approval by the best human reason based on the widest human knowledge was the standard. There was no thought of divinely revealed righteous- ness, nor any clear conception of a God whose ways with men and whose commands set the standard for man's conduct. God was not the pattern of human righteousness in Greece and Rome, although divini- ties might be conceived in accordance with ideals which men could reach wherever mortality was not a bar. But the principles of Christian ethics trace their descent from the spirit of the Old Testament, — from the great note of the Pentateuch, " And Abraham be- lieved God, and it was accounted unto him for right- eousness ; " from the psalmist's cry, " Against thee only have I sinned " — " In thy sight shall no man be justified ; " from the note of Proverbs, *^ The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom,'^ — to love what